Autonomous vehicles may communicate with each other in 5G or 6G to avoid hazards, mitigate collisions, and facilitate the flow of traffic. However, for cooperative action, each vehicle must determine the wireless address of other vehicles in proximity, so that they can communicate directly with each other. It is not sufficient to know the wireless address alone; the wireless address must be associated with an actual vehicle in view. Methods disclosed herein enable vehicles to exchange messages that specify the distances and angles of other vehicles in view. Then, each vehicle compares the other vehicle's measurements with its own, along with each vehicle's wireless address. Using an AI-based map-merging algorithm, one or more vehicles can produce a full traffic map from the fragmentary local maps of each vehicle's viewpoint.
Legal claims defining the scope of protection, as filed with the USPTO.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request message and the reply messages are transmitted according to 5G or 6G technology.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the angles are measured relative to a direction of a road occupied by the first and second vehicles.
5. The method of claim 4, wherein the request message further indicates the first plurality of angles and the third plurality of distances, and the reply message further indicates the second plurality of angles and the fourth plurality of distances.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the merged map further comprises a wireless address of the first vehicle and a wireless address of the second vehicle.
9. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting the merged map to the second vehicle and the third vehicle.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the merged map includes a fourth vehicle which is not visible to the first vehicle.
16. The media of claim 14, the method further comprising transmitting, to the first vehicle, a wireless address of the second vehicle.
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January 24, 2022
September 20, 2022
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